I own these characters not, obviously.

I just use puppets when I find them lying around.

-

This was never meant to last long. He had calculated, had everything gone as planned, it would be a week there as 221's basement neighbour, two weeks if everything went wrong. Everything had gone wrong, and it had now been three weeks.

And now Oliver Saxon was dead. It was done.

But where do I go now, Deb...? ... Harry...?

He looked up and saw Deb. She was leaning on the door frame, 'freakishly' strong little twig arms crossed over her lanky twig body. She was shaking her head, looking at the floor... but it looked like she might want to smile. She looked up and she was biting her lip.

She gave a begrudging nod of her head accompanied with an exaggerated eye roll.

He smiled a little and waved.

There was a knock at the door.

Before he had the second to look up from the sink into the mirror there was another.

"Yes, hello." Another knock. "As some of us are rather busy and may or may not be covered in certain acids that are threatening the integrity of our clothes, could you please get out of there. Now, thank you!"

There was a muffled response from the other bedroom along the lines of telling Sherlock that 'he had only been in there a minute, you child!'.

Sherlock spoke clearly in his reply to this. "I have a precise schedule, John-"

A disgusted yell from the kitchen. "Sherlock, what the hell IS all this?! Is this... Is this eating the FLOOR?"

"I would REALLY advise not touching-"

Dexter drowned out the rest by groaning his rage into the next hands-full of water he splashed on his face, resurfacing with a splutter and, "Oh! I'll be, uh... I'll be out in a minute."

This. This was a nightmare. After 'the explosion', as Mrs. Hudson had him imformed him had 'made everything in the pipes go really a bit wonky, and dear, they never, mind you never returned any of my calls about it, not the city. They say I have to go through a private company-' He shook his head. He wished away the rest of that conversation. Mrs. Hudson was a kind... a very kind, innocent woman, if a bit talkative. Nosy. He'd hate to start harbouring murderous feelings towards her, just because of his own stupid inconveniences with having to share the bathroom with his neighbours upstairs.

You know. The private detective? The first-net-then-world-famous, private detective, with his Dr. Watson friend, an ex-soldier at that, always following in close proximity? Always ready to expose something you'd rather have not. The one who's suspicious of you and whose only differentiating character from Doakes is that he's at least capable of putting on a good show for the humans around them and he's not calling you 'motherfucker'. That one, that-

The door was being quickly unlocked from a key that he hadn't known had existed, because locked doors meant nothing to Sherlock.

Or nearly as little as they did to Dexter.

He saw a hazy glint of the straight-razor that Sherlock kept in the tooth-brush holder for some ungodly reason-

- the looked up, smiling with a refreshed 'Ah!' as he patted down the remaining moisture from his face just as the door thudded open. "Sorry-" He made some sort of sound that he refered to as a laugh, then pointed with a sheepish smile to where Sherlock stood blocking the door way before looking back up at him.

"Going to let me out?"

Sherlock stood there for a full and unnecessary three seconds longer before he backed up by swiveling on one heel, extending one hand as if he were showing the way out from a much grander experience than the detective's ill-abused bathroom could offer.

"My apologies, Mr. Ingolfson."

Dexter tucked his head forward in a nod-like gesture and mumbled his thanks as he squeezed past. He ignored the man's stare the man thought he couldn't see.

I hate this name already.

The door slammed shut behind him as quickly as he'd passed out into the corridor, and as he turned for the kitchen to slip away he performed a stunt of heroism as he did not stab the butter knife through Dr. Watson's eye as he rounded on him in the kitchen, hell-bent in his mind-numbingly noble and genteel need to make this up to him.

He wished he'd never said anything about his... About Debra.

("Scares me, I mean, though...I mean. Er, I'm not sure if I've ever told you about Harry? My sister." The doctor took another sip of beer.

"She's.. She's, er, certainly going down that sort of road- I mean, not that, you know, I'm trying at all to compare - " Dexter shook his head to dispel his concern, and John continued with a short cough. "Right, well... Oh, and, and it er, hah... It scares me, yeah. I'm scared that... I won't be facing it as well as you are, if that day ever comes."

He took another sip of beer to save himself from his mouth, and so did Dexter. He had to lie about Deb's death. About Rita, Harry. But that was it. That all he could reveal, and only then with twisted names and facts. Still. The beer was nice. He liked the steak, even if it wasn't really the same. And John ate like Deb could. All teeth and knife and quick movements to and from his mouth. He felt like he could genuinely smile, but he didn't. He sipped more beer and said, "Really? Go on. Seriously.")

"Darri, wait! Oh, my god, I really... Er, I mean, not that you don't know how he is by now, but you know, I apologise for Sherlock he's, er... He's... "

"He hasn't had his coffee. Don't worry about it."

John stopped, laughed and then smiled gratefully, almost like he was yet again amazed that an American was being reasonable and calm about pathetic domestic shit. Dexter smiled back in the same way. John was easy. Honest, innocent, honourable and easy. He took the folded newspaper he'd tucked under his arm and swatted John lightly on the shoulder as he passed him on his way for the kitchen.